Gentilly Resiliency District goes against flow of how New Orleans handles stormwater

A $141 million grant the federal government awarded New Orleans last week will allow the city to tackle one of its most ambitious infrastructure projects since a network of drainage canals and pumping stations were built to turn its sub-sea level swampland into sprawling suburban-style neighborhoods decades ago.

The projects in the Gentilly Resiliency District are very different than the traditional methods of flood control. They are designed to retain and control the water that previously had been kept behind levees and floodwalls. And that presents perhaps the toughest task for the city: convincing generations of residents who have been told it's important to get the water out that they should now keep it in.

Some neighborhood association leaders say they like the idea of reducing flood risks in Gentilly, but they are skeptical about the broader concept of resiliency.

"I don't want to come out at the very end and it turns out the grant didn't do us any good," said the Rev. Lionel Davis, president of the Pilotland Neighborhood Association.

Davis lives less than a mile from the planned Mirabeau Water Garden, where Gov. John Bel Edwards, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, other city and federal officials gathered to announce New Orleans' grant award from the Natural Disaster Resiliency Competition. The money comes from a $1 billion pool of unused Hurricane Sandy recovery funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Landrieu administration requested $280 million in its grant application and was awarded half. The next step is to hammer out just how much money New Orleans has to spend on a slate of projects it has planned for Gentilly.

The Rockefeller Foundation paid for the city to hire a chief resilience officer. That job went to Jeff Hebert, executive director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, who began his new role in November 2014 and worked with city administrators, urban planners, architects and community stakeholders to meet HUD's October grant application deadline.

"HUD was really keen on the Gentilly Resiliency District idea ... because our proposal was: If you can demonstrate success in one geographic area, then that allows you to prove you can make a holistic change -- and not just one thing in one neighborhood, one thing in another neighborhood."

HUD required participants to provide leverage or matching dollars to implement certain projects. New Orleans pulled together $365 million from various pools, with HUD allowing the city to count money already set aside for projects in the Gentilly area.

"We were able to look at timelines and be very efficient because there were many things we already had underway," Hebert said. "It wasn't like we were creating new from scratch projects."

Water works

Although the HUD money can only be used for infrastructure, the range of projects it approved for New Orleans' proposal is broad -- from street construction to more ambitious undertakings that will dramatically alter the neighborhood landscape.

Based on the city's grant application, the most money will be spent on transforming miles of neutral grounds into water features meant to reduce flood risks and allow for the absorption of groundwater -- rather than pumping it to outfall canals. Some medians will be excavated and turned into "blue corridors," and others will become "green corridors" with swales, tree canopies and water permeable sidewalks. Existing live oaks will be retained and protected.

The Mirabeau Water Garden is one of the larger projects. A detention pond, designed to hold water temporarily, will sit on the site of the former Sisters of St. Joseph's convent. The property will be enhanced with a pedestrian path and public recreation features that can double as a holding area for floodwater when needed.

Another project proposes removing sections of floodwalls from the Orleans Avenue Canal, opening the site for recreational use and greater aesthetic appeal. Modifications would be made to what the grant application calls "floodable areas" of City Park east of the canal, with a weir that would control water flowing into its lagoons. The project would serve as a model for a similar future project along the London Avenue Canal.

Hebert said the design team that worked with the city on the grant application consulted with the Army Corps of Engineers on the floodwall removal project, explaining how it would be incorporated with other features of the Gentilly Resiliency District. Corps officials did not immediately respond to an interview request.

To reduce local flooding, eight neighborhood blocks in the St. Anthony neighborhood would have features such as permeable sidewalks, swales and rain retention gardens on publicly owned parcels.

To complement that work, a project in St. Roch will allow a site in that neighborhood to retain and store more stormwater. Although not immediately adjacent to Gentilly, it sits on higher ground and contributes to the runoff that can flood its lower-lying areas.

Green campuses are planned in the Pontilly neighborhood as well as the city-owned Milne Boys Home campus and the area between the new McDonogh 35 High School and Juvenile Justice Center.

In addition to many of the same green features, the St. Bernard neighborhood would gain access to City Park, via a pedestrian bridge over Bayou St. John, and a boat launch.

One notable area will remain largely untouched -- the 27-acre Dillard Wetland, a forested expanse just across London Avenue Canal from the campus that was never developed. The resiliency strategy calls for the wetland to be cut off from the city drainage system to handle its own stormwater. A berm will then be built around it to control water from the surrounding neighborhood, reducing its flood risk.

A pedestrian bridge would connect Dillard and the public to the site, which would serve as "an educational center for water and ecology," according to the grant application.

Community support

City leaders are counting on buy-in among residents and other property owners to achieve its larger resiliency goals. A $7 million resiliency retrofit program comprises the core of the district's community adaptation strategy.

Specifically, the city wants Gentilly property owners to take resiliency measures of their own, and officials are considering incentives that would encourage them to do just that. In the coming weeks, New Orleans is expected to announce a partnership with Deutsche Bank to expand an energy-efficiency program for homeowners to include stormwater management and home elevation. It would provide access to private financing for such improvements.

For homeowners with less means, the city wants to use the HUD money to subsidize these improvements and complement existing community development block grant resources and New Orleans Redevelopment Authority programs. Homeowners making less than 80 percent of the area's median income could receive up to $5,000 to add stormwater management features to their property, which would cover the cost of expert consultation and construction. NORA would oversee the vendors handling those services.

Property owners who apply for retrofitting grants would have to work with a program consultant to determine the best use of the money. That means a homeowner wouldn't be able to elevate his home, for example, unless it's considered the best mitigation measure for the property, Hebert said.

Vacant lots owned by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority will be turned into smaller-scale stormwater retention structures, especially in flood-prone areas where Hebert said new construction would only serve to "fill the swamp."

Gretchen Bradford, president of the Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Association, said a pilot program on a vacant lot near her home showed her how a small retention project could be effective. However, her concern is that too many NORA lots would be used to hold water, eliminating the opportunity for homebuyers to invest in the area.

"It sounds like a great idea, but there should be an opportunity to provide more input and offer other suggestions," Bradford said.

Hebert said that while the lots to be used for retention haven't been chosen, he expects they will be concentrated in lower-lying areas -- leaving ample inventory for anyone who wants to buy and build in Gentilly.

Deputy Mayor Cedric Grant, who oversees the Sewerage and Water Board and all city construction, said community education is needed for the resiliency strategy to work because most of its projects go against what has become conventional thinking in New Orleans.

"We've spent all this time, all these years pumping the water out," Grant said. "This is really changing everything we've done."

The money pool

Rules in the HUD grant competition required participants to submit projects that addressed disasters from 2012 and 2013. New Orleans applied using Hurricane Isaac, which spared the city its brunt in 2012 but did reveal problems that persisted from Hurricane Katrina seven years earlier.

The city was also able to take advantage of the vast federal resources still on hand to provide the needed leverage or matching money to get the HUD grant. Nearly $193 million in the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program was declared as direct leverage -- money firmly committed to resilience-related projects. Another $110 million from FEMA was added as supporting leverage, money not earmarked for specific projects but intended for similar use.

Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin said the city knows how flexible it can be with its federal funding sources, adding that New Orleans has greater range with its FEMA money. This should allow the city to tap into its recent $1.2 billion infrastructure settlement with FEMA to fund projects in Gentilly and other portions of the city, he said.

HUD requires that grant recipients spend their money within two years of securing contractors, according to the mayor's office. In its application, New Orleans provided timelines for each segment of its plan.

Design for its water features started in 2015 and will be complete by early 2018 with environmental impact studies and contractor procurement occurring within the same time frame.

Construction would end in 2022, with the area seeing the full function and benefits of its projects sometime between 2019 and 2022.

Correction: This story was updated to correct the funding source for the city's chief resiliency officer post and to explain the Corps of Engineers involvement in the grant application.